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Greetings Worthy One! By the time i met Paul Simon my first winter at NYU, i’d been writing songs and performing for several years. Philly Folk Fest founder Gene Shay secured my first solo concert as a singer/songwriter for a local college when i was just sixteen, after hearing me at the Main Point in Bryn Mawr, PA.

GO FUND JOE NOW Simon was winding up his S&G career and was still signed with Columbia Records. He had a friend in the Dean of the Arts at NYU, who suggested he hold auditions for a songwriter’s workshop. Such things were unheard of in those days, but Paul was an innovator. Though as a teen, i preferred the solo works of Cohen and Mitchell, My buddy George Tsontakis dragged me out on a cold January eve to perform my tunes for Paul. I’m glad he did. George went on to world fame in classical music. I got to hang with the legend.

GO FUND JOE NOW I began meeting with Paul Monday nights in a stark room on Manhattan’s lower east side, along with a few other young artists. Not a class, no “credits” involved, it was more like we’d snuck into this building for informal rap sessions about what we loved to do. One night Simon said he’d booked some time at Columbia, enough to lay down tracks for each of us. Paul and Roy Hallee at controls, i made my first major label recording, with Dylan immersed in his own Self Portrait down the hall.

GO FUND JOE NOW Sitting down to write these updates, i feel i must offer some context to make these under-the-radar adventures easier to comprehend. Yet i realize most of this is inexplicable. It’s all grist ground into the art. Suffice to say, i saw truer merit outrunning fame and fortune to pursue the soul’s creative process.

GO FUND JOE NOW As the music scene slid into glam/disco/ punk, i slipped away to North Carolina, finding work as an artist-in-residence at Duke University through the Governor’s Council on Cultural Resources. This was a shift in focus, but really all the same to me. Painting was my first calling, and by then i’d also spent some formative time in the NY studio of artist Kenneth Noland. Both areas of inquiry inspired.

GO FUND JOE NOW Let me fast forward here, leave decades in the dust, for this update is about the convergence of those musical/ visual paths in my current project. I’ve been fortunate this summer to focus on the dual nature of my work. Presentation of these works will include the experience of both aspects. I’m in the final 10% phase of record production here. But the truth is, it’s a far more detailed technical climb at the top than the lower 90% combined. Taking on the bulk of engineering tasks myself, i’ve cut deeply into typical budget requirements. Still, expert skills and state-of-art equipment are required, and there is just no way around some completion expenses. This project needs your support now.

GO FUND JOE NOW Recordings like this can easily run up tens of thousands of dollars in production fees. Our goal seeks only 5000 dollars to offset the costs of production, two years in the making. We’ve seen your contributions address 20% of this need. With 80% yet funded , the project needs your support now.

Please check out the perks and dig in now to help. Whatever you give comes back pura vida. Despite critical acclaim of my past albums, pleasing the masses has never been my motivator. If anything, the digital age has allowed access to a deeper sanctum of artists, with dedicated fundraising platforms and the word- of-mouth endorsements that help make these indie productions happen.

GO FUND JOE NOW

Many thanks for your continued support! Sincerely, joe Linus aka One-Legged Heart/ Song without end